


be sure to choose good company

by gaytimetraveller



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pirate, M/M, yes. yes im finally posting the pirate au ive been picking at for what feels like halfway to forever
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-07-29 11:40:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16263455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaytimetraveller/pseuds/gaytimetraveller
Summary: Cloud Strife is a dead man, Leon's supposed to be tracking down someone and wishes he hadn't taken on the job, and Sora's good luck never seems to run out. (Or, one poor navy man gets kidnapped on a case of mistaken identity, and it all spirals out from there.)





	1. it's just an ordinary day

**Author's Note:**

> hey whats up lads ive had this pirate au bouncing around for a while and im finally posting it i just. always write the bits that arent the ones part of the actual plot like i wrote 10,000 words of backstory content that probably wont be seeing the light of day for a while also ive read over this godforsaken chapter so many times that i dont know if its good anymore
> 
> Anyways lord knows what updating for this will be like knowing me but hopefully ill get through this whole thing Ive Got Plans

Cloud Strife was a dead man. Not literally, of course, but he was sure he would be soon. It was only by sheer luck and good timing that he hadn’t yet been put to the gallows, or perhaps just ran through by one of his very angry higher-ups. He was sure there wouldn’t be anything especially fancy about his death; no ceremony, no public execution, he wasn’t exactly someone to be made an example of.

Simply put, Cloud was no one, and would likely be put six feet under and not be missed.

Any absence left in his wake could quickly be filled in in a city like this, a port of endless coming and going. It would be no surprise if the only word sent to anyone about his sudden disappearance was a letter to his mother, saying that he’d gone and deserted, or jumped on a ship and left or something of the like.

Everything was going to hell in a handbasket, more-so than it had already been. So now here he was, sitting at his meagre excuse for a kitchen table with a sword in front of him, waiting for someone to come kick the door down and drag him away, just like he had every other day that week.

Initially, this had all kicked off shortly before Zack disappeared on the job. Or at least, the series of events that had gotten him here had started there. And Zack hadn’t really disappeared as most people did, he didn’t go missing with people looking for him or asking after him, wondering where and how he was or what had happened. It was more like he’d dropped off the face of the earth. No one spoke a word about him, or whatever had happened to him. Cloud had no idea if Zack was dead or alive, and at this point it was unavoidable to think he’d either been murdered, or had maybe deserted, as unlikely as that was.

To put things briefly, before Zack had left on the trip that had ended up resulting in his disappearance, he’d started telling Cloud about something fishy that was going on, and then he’d been shipped out and no one had heard a word from him again. It was beyond suspicious, at least in Cloud’s eyes. And now, it had been nearly a year since the whole fiasco, and there was still nothing. It wasn’t as if he’d been told Zack was dead, it was instead a complete absence of _anything_. Somehow that was worse, like everyone was acting as if he’d never existed at all.

In a way, Cloud felt like it had been his fault, like somehow he could have stopped things, as if he could’ve seen that things weren’t quite right sooner (not that things in Midgar had ever been quite right, it wasn’t exactly the most idyllic city, and corruption tended to run deep. Even the most starry eyed newcomers quickly came to realize that. It was easier to turn a blind eye, to just live with it.) The day Zack had left, when he’d seen him off down at the harbour that morning, he’d had a sinking feeling about it all. He kind of wished he’d gone along with him, even if that meant meeting some kind of terrible fate himself, at least then he’d _know_.

And now, thanks to his current situation, he’d likely never find out what had happened to Zack, nor be able to do him any justice if there really had been some sort of foul play. Although if the people he suspected were responsible, there wasn’t much justice Cloud himself could be doing.

Well, at least he’d tried. He’d tried his best, and now there was a noose around his neck.

What only made it all worse was that over the last few days of sleep deprivation and general paranoia Cloud had realized that if things had been a bit different, maybe he would have had a chance. Sitting around for hours on end, or going through the motions of the bare minimum, it all allowed an unfortunate amount of time for thinking.

But unfortunately, there was only so far skill with a sword and being of vague further in-land nobility could take someone in the navy, and it offered little to no protection in this whole situation. Sure, many sticky life or death situations could be solved with a sword and a good grasp on how to use it, but this one wasn’t even really a life or death situation. In fact, getting in a sword fight against Sephiroth was more of a death or death situation. Most people didn’t make it out of any kind of fight with him fully intact, much less alive.

Maybe accusing his higher ups of murdering his best friend had been a mistake. Maybe if he’d done things differently, maybe more creatively, or smartly, he could’ve come out of this on top; or at least alive. The whole threatening to expose what he vaguely knew of a scheme among the higher ups that he was sure the knowledge of had killed Zack was probably one of the worse ideas he’d gone through with. The nail in the coffin was the Sephiroth bit, or specifically accusing Sephiroth himself of all of this, and to his face nonetheless.

Never let it be said that Cloud Strife was entirely a coward. Practically everyone was afraid of Sephiroth, and he’d gone and done that. Perhaps he was just a bit too dumb for his own good sometimes, or at least too quick to enact stupid ideas for his own good.

And for all that he was absolutely going to be dead soon. Or at least in jail, and then dead shortly thereafter. It was honestly a bit surprising he wasn’t yet dead, but he’d also practically barred himself in his house for most of the week, and it was common knowledge that the bastard himself, and a few other high brass, had had to leave the city for a few days on some important and probably secretive job.

Cloud hadn’t really wanted to look into whatever it was, as he figured knowing when he’d be back would only make the dread worse. It was already pretty bad, considering he’d been idly at home with a sword nearby, practically waiting for someone to come kick down the door for a few days now.

At least now the general fear over everything had turned into more of a resignation, an acceptance of the inevitable. With all the time he had to think, he’d surveyed his feasibly options, and of course, there was no loophole, no easy way out. There was a certain surety about that, about knowing that sooner or later his life would just be over. No way to avoid it now. He’d run out of stupid ideas and any real amount of bravery, considering how much good his last stupid idea had done him.

For a while there, he’d practically paced ruts into the floor. By Thursday, he’d stopped the pacing, and was also rapidly running out of food. It wasn’t like he kept the house especially well stocked; he wasn’t rich, and even if he wasn’t exactly poor either he wasn’t going to be filling cupboards to the brim any time soon. There wasn’t much sense to it anyways, there hadn’t been before and there especially wasn’t now.

So, Thursday evening, when he still hadn’t been dragged out of his home by the neck and killed on the spot, he made a resolution to go out on Friday, providing he wasn’t dead by then. Because, unfortunately, being not-dead meant he still needed to have something to eat.

That meant that the next evening he was headed out the door, hoping he wouldn’t catch any navy ships coming back into the harbour. Despite his general helplessness in terms of fate, he still took a sword. Cloud figured he would rather go down after having gotten a few good hits in, or maybe even after having stabbed someone, than to just surrender. He liked to say it was because it felt pathetic to resign to going down like a sack of potatoes. He didn’t admit that maybe, it was a way to be remembered, at least then he wouldn’t just fade away and disappear into nothing like Zack had, with no one here left to remember him. After all, it was rather hard to forget someone when they’d stabbed you. It was a bit of an awful thought, but considering how things were...well. So he went and marched out the door, jacket over his shoulders and sword on his hip.

On his way down the road, Cloud had a bad idea. A stupid yet small bad idea. And being Cloud Strife, practically a dead man walking, he decided maybe one last (minor) stupid idea would be alright.

He was going do what many people would likely do when faced with imminent death, and no family or friends to speak of, or at least not in any close range. He was going to go out, and get drunk. Maybe not a fantastic solution to this ongoing mess, but a solution nonetheless.

It wasn’t like he had very many options after all. Once again, no friends, no family, no hope of beating Sephiroth in a sword fight, and not quite daring enough to try to run off out of the city, especially considering there were guards at just about every way in and out. There wasn’t much of anything nearby to run to anyways, the land surrounding the city was wholly barren, it would be too much effort for nothing. He didn’t want to push his luck trying to steal a boat either. He certainly couldn’t commandeer an entire ship himself, and taking a rinky dink rowboat out on the ocean was just asking for trouble. That wasn’t even a bad idea with some kind of possible profit or upside, it was just one that would get him killed. He didn’t fancy being a stowaway on some merchant ship or something either, much like the rowboat idea that one was just asking for more trouble, just trouble less of the certain death kind and more of the jail kind.

At least this way, if he had to get arrested, or in a fight he couldn’t win, he could do it piss drunk. There was no real advantage to being piss drunk other than being able to blame possibly dying in a sword fight he had no chance in on having been piss drunk instead of his own sword skills. It didn’t take much to get him drunk either, so it wouldn’t really be a waste of money (not that anything really would be now). Practically everyone knew Cloud was a horrible lightweight.

Therefore, he could justify ambling off down to the pub down the street once he’d picked up a few small groceries and the sun had nearly set. He was fully ready to throw back a few drinks, and possibly end up tripping over his own feet or passing out going back up the hill on the way home. It wouldn’t be the first time. Maybe it would be the last.

 

* * *

 

Meanwhile, down at the harbour, Leon was reaching the end of his rope. Squall “Leon” Leonhart was a decently patient man, more patient than many. Some people (his infamously antsy cousin most of all) would say he had all the patience of a saint. Leon didn’t think nearly as much, and he figured he spent too much time with some people who couldn’t wait for anything at all.

Either way, patient or impatient, this whole ongoing series of recent shenanigans was starting to wear him thin.

Beside him, swinging a lamp back and forth, five and a bit-ish feet of gangly teen was bouncing from foot to foot, whether from stress or excitement Leon wasn’t sure. Or maybe it was just because he couldn’t stand still for too long. To think of it, it was harder to think of a time when Sora had been standing still. He’d always been exuberant, more full of energy than Leon could imagine being. He was sure he’d never had that much energy in his life.

Unfortunately, it was part-way his dear cousin Sora’s fault that he was into this whole mess. He couldn’t say no to the kid, never really had been able to, and had been cursing and kicking himself for it every day. He was hard to say no to, and it had gotten Leon into his fair share of messes from the time they’d been children up until now. It only got even more difficult to refuse him when some of Sora’s spur of the moment ideas and harebrained schemes actually worked out, but Leon had long since figured out his schemes only ever tended to work for him, and him alone; they never went well for Leon.

And now, here they were. All the way across the ocean, looking for a cousin of a cousin that he barely knew, who just so happened to be someone of no small importance. Not to mention that they would have their necks wrung if they couldn’t get the poor fellow back home safe and sound now that they’d taken on the job, preferably as soon as possible.

Their aunt and uncle had been very clear on the fact that they wanted this over with as soon as they could, which was a sentiment Leon very much shared. Not only did he want this over quickly, but he wished they could’ve just gotten the navy to take care of this one instead of doing it themselves. (Or maybe he didn’t, seeing as the navy wasn’t always very effective at its job; he was proof of that. That wasn’t getting into the host of other issues that could come with the navy going anywhere near this whole debacle, if certain suspicions and rumours did end up being more fact than fiction.)

But Leon really just wanted to go home, have a nice meal, take a walk on the beach, maybe read a book, no more of this missing cousins and political schemes bullshit. Leon liked to keep himself away from political schemes and politics in general as much as he possibly could, thank you very much.

“Do you think we’ll actually find anything here?” Sora’s near incessant bouncing was starting to make the planks of the harbour docks creak. Leon sighed and brought a hand to his face.

“No clue, but we’ve got to start somewhere, and here is as likely a spot as any.”

“Didn’t Kairi say that yesterday she thought she saw someone that looked like, well, uh, him?” he motioned with his hands as he spoke, trying to avoid saying the name Leon had been drilling him not to say in public for their entire trip over, and sent the lamp light back and forth in an almost dizzying fashion. “If we found him now that’d be good!”

Leon looked over at the relative darkness of the ships on the harbour, trying to blink lights out of his eyes. “Yeah, and it’d keep family from having our heads.”

“Oh! That’d be good too...but even if we did get in trouble we just could go sailing off! Most of the family don’t know about the pirate thing, do they? I don’t think they do,”

Sora kept chattering on, and Leon sighed again and shook his head. If it hadn’t been for his _numerous_ interventions over the past several years, not only would their entire family have found out their golden child was a pirate, but in fact half the country would have heard it. And they all would’ve been hung, blueblood heritage be damned.

If he’d loved his dear cousin any less he never would’ve let the kid anywhere near the ocean for a whole host of reasons, no matter how good with a sword he might’ve been. Not to mention he could be too loose-lipped for his own good.

“I don’t think that’d be a good idea. Don’t worry about it yet, we’ve only just started.”

Sora leaned over and grinned, and Leon could practically feel the headache coming on. “You mean no hatching any schemes for the possible disaster future while we’re waiting here for the lads?”

Leon looked over to glare at him as well as he could. “No schemes. Of any kind. _None_. No new plans either.”

“Aww, you’re no fun!” he fake-whined. Then Leon flicked him in the forehead, which sent his doofy hat flying, and he went dashing off after it, lantern light bobbing along with him.

As he watched Sora fumble around for his hat, Leon couldn’t imagine how the two of them were going to be finding their posh cousin; they didn’t even have any idea who’d taken off with him or where he’d gone. Hell, he could’ve just ran away, he could be hiding back home, under all of their noses.

He could only hope that none of his aunts would have him strung up if they went home empty-handed.

 

* * *

 

Cloud had decided after a mere two drinks that getting drunk off his arse was a stupid, no good idea.

Obviously, it had been a stupid, no good idea from the start. It was simply the realization that maybe stupid ideas really weren’t going to be getting him any further in life, and that it may as well be better to go home with his groceries, or maybe go for a nice walk while he still had the chance.

He quietly paid for his drinks, picked up his single bag of food, and left the bar. He sighed as he drifted off down the street, not quite wanting to head home yet, but not wanting to sit around to get drunk anymore either. He didn’t have any food that would spoil all that quickly, so a walk around it was then.

Without much thought, he headed down towards the harbour. It was late enough to start getting cooler, a bit of a chill in the wind that was starting to pick up, especially compared to the daytime heat. It’d surely be even colder down by the harbour with the breeze coming in off the ocean, but after spending a few days cooped up in his house, which tended to be even warmer inside than out, it sounded like a welcome break to Cloud.

As he sauntered further down the hill, the familiar fish-y smell started to hit. Cloud made a face. All his years in the navy, and he still wasn’t fond of it. He supposed he never would be. He pulled his jacket closer around him, huffed, and then nearly tripped on a gust of wind.

Some good those drinks had done him. If he’d actually went and gone and gotten truly drunk he probably wouldn’t have gotten home. He probably would’ve barely made it up the road on the hill, let alone to his house, or inside of it.

As the ground leveled out, getting down near the docks, he squinted at the sight of what looked like a lantern light distantly and haphazardly bobbing around. He scrunched his face up further, “Looks like someone’s over there bopping around like a blue-arsed fly,” he mumbled, shaking his head.

He let himself spend a few minutes strolling around the harbour, enjoying the breeze off the sea despite the smell that came with it. Even having grown up not on the coast but more in-land, there was something decently nice about the ocean, and about being able to go down to the harbour and take a walk. It wasn’t quite a novelty, especially not after time in the navy, but it was nice enough. Occasionally as he went, he would glance over at the far-off light, which only continued wildly swinging around.

After a few minutes, he hit the end of a wharf and gingerly sat down along it. There were a few rowboats tied to it, probably belonging to some local kids or fishermen or something of the like. He slowly swung his feet back and forth, staring down at the boats as they gently bobbed and swayed, and he thought about his abandoned rowboat stealing plan.

He looked up and out at the ocean, endlessly vast and dark, even under the stars. He looked back down at the rickety little rowboats. Sure, it seemed to be a calm night, and he could probably easily take off with a rowboat, but where would he go? Not to mention the sheer unpredictability of the ocean, where even small waves could easily capsize and drown a rickety little boat.

He wasn’t one of those kids who hadn’t grown up near the ocean who were confident and generally fearless when it came to it. That was just a good way to get killed. If there was one thing Cloud had learned from coming to the city, it was that a certain level of both fear and respect for the ocean was healthy more than anything.

There wasn’t anything nearby to be going to in a rowboat anyways, especially along the coast. Nowhere to go, only the likeliness of a crash, either out in the water or against some rocky shore or harsh cliff. He knew well that there weren’t many lighthouses out along those barren cliffs, no use for more than a small handful of them when there was nothing out there. There was no reason to be sailing anywhere nearby.

He rested his chin on one hand and sighed. It was a nice night. A nice breeze, calm ocean, late and dark enough to really see the stars. No drunks having a row along the docks, or near drowning from falling in. (Cloud had a few too many memories of how rambunctious things could get near a harbour at night thanks to his time in the navy.) In all honesty, it was a nicer night than most, and he couldn’t even bring himself to enjoy it.

Even out here, surrounded by open ocean, seemingly endless possibility on the horizon, he felt trapped. It was suffocating, walls closing in on all sides at a torturously slow pace. Or maybe he was already boxed in.

He didn’t even have any friends here left to talk to. Anyone he knew that could’ve helped, or even anyone he could’ve talked to, was either halfway across the country or likely dead. It was a sad state of affairs, and he barely had the energy left to be sad about it. He barely had the energy left to be feeling much of anything after a few days of endless pacing and emotionally draining paranoia.

Slowly, he was drawn out of thinking about his imminent demise by steadily approaching footsteps and voices. The closer they got, the more it sounded like people starting to get into an argument.

 _Great_. There were the drunks coming along to have a row.

Cloud very much hoped he wouldn’t have to be fishing any of them out of the harbour water. He’d done that enough in the last few years to be sick of it. He swore if he somehow got out of this alive, he would move to some little town off the coast, and never have to deal with the navy or ships or anyone drunk near or in water. He could become a farmer, and spend the rest of his life mowing hay and farming ducks and chickens or something.

As the voices started becoming clearer Cloud irritably shut his eyes, as if that would help any.

“I’m telling you, I saw him!”

“You’ve thought that you ‘saw him’ at least three times today, and I’m telling you, it wasn’t him.” The second voice was quieter than the first, if not a little sharp. “Maybe you should get some better sleep.”

There was an exasperated sigh, and a vague pissed off grumble. A few words were said quietly enough that Cloud thankfully couldn’t hear them.

Then, a third voice with, “I’m sure we’ll find him soon enough! Why don’t you two head back? It’s getting late, I’ll wait here for my brother.”

“...Whatever. Alright.” The first voice was quieter, and faded out with footsteps.

Then, “I’ll go with you,” the second voice followed.

Footsteps faded, and for a few moments it was thankfully quiet. Of course, it didn’t take long for much louder and faster footsteps to come bounding across the docks, planks creaking and everything.

Cloud frowned, and considered getting up and going home.  If these guys did start having an argument, or even so much as started yelling, he was getting out of there. He didn’t need that kind of headache, but at that moment getting up and walking all the way home seemed like a monumental task. (And it kind of was. With how things had been going, he was soon going to be ready to lie down and take a nap on the wharf.)

“Hey, hey! Lil sis, how’s the night been?” this new voice was way louder, and Cloud’s frown only deepened. He was absolutely going to have a headache at this rate. “Any sign of our golden boy, or is the captain gonna have our heads?”

“No sight of our guy, but we had a good meal at this cute little restaurant, we’ll have to come back sometime...and, oh! We did have a little bit of excitement,”

“Mmhm, do tell?”

“Our ‘new recruit’ threatened to cut a fellow’s hands off for putting them on her, she nearly went through with it too, but he was quick to run off,” that was followed by a laugh.

“Oh man, she doesn’t kid around much does she?”

“Not one bit! But she’s nice though, she’s super easy for most to get along with and probably does more work than half of you lazy bums. A little uptight sometimes, but you know how it is with the posh ones. They’re just not used to it.”

They both started laughing, and Cloud stopped paying much attention at that point. He sat back and stretched an arm up with a sigh, and the voices only got quieter. At least they no longer seemed like they were particularly drunk or rowdy, and, even better, seemed to be leaving.

Quite frankly, he didn’t care much; as long as it stayed relatively quiet Cloud was content to continue sitting and staring out at the dark water, or up at the stars in the sky. He was already starting to get lost in his own thoughts again, watching the rowboats gently sway ever so slightly. It was a bit more calming to watch them move than to stare at the dark horizon and think about the future, or lack thereof. He still didn’t especially want to be trudging back up home yet anyways, and it couldn’t do him any harm to stay for a bit longer, could it?

Unfortunately, as it turns out, it very much could.

He didn’t even bother to turn his head at the quiet creaking sounds of a few sets of approaching footsteps. He didn’t figure he had much to worry about that didn’t involve a silver-haired man and a rather frightening sword, and in all honesty Sephiroth was rather hard to miss coming. Really, any kind of subtlety wasn’t his strong suit. Once again, very unfortunately, he was wrong.

One moment, Cloud was (again) thinking about how far one could get in a rowboat, and maybe kind of fantasizing about taking a rowboat trip with Zack, and the next, he was being picked up and lifted off.

On a side note, despite years in the navy, Cloud wasn’t always the smartest in terms of self defense or self preservation. He couldn’t even really blame it on the alcohol considering he’d only had two drinks. He could only blame it on himself being a dumbass who hadn’t paid enough attention. For god’s sake, he’d even had a _sword_ on him.

“Hey! _Hey!_ ” Cloud yelled, and kicked his legs in the air, as if that would help him. Sadly, tipsy and in the dark, he couldn’t see much, if anything at all, of who had grabbed him. He assumed navy men, here to finally throw him in a jail cell somewhere. It was either that, or he was getting mugged, but it wasn’t like he had much to steal aside from _one_ bag of groceries. (A single bag of food wasn’t really enough to bother stealing in his opinion, you may as well aim for more than that while you’re at it.)

He was flung over someone’s shoulder, someone undoubtedly taller than him, which wasn’t all that hard considering he was just over five and a half feet of somewhat scrawny blond. Even kicking and yelling and generally squirming and putting up whatever fight he had left in him wasn’t all that terribly effective. “This is really rustling my jimmies! Put me down!”

Then Cloud felt a sharp elbow hit him in the knee. “Get him to quiet down, shush! Don’t want to attract any navy-men, do you?” the voice was surprisingly not one belonging to some rough military recruit. In fact, it sounded an awful lot like those voices that had been chatting from up the docks.

Cloud was very suddenly hit with the unpleasant realization that these were not in fact navy men or military guards here to take him away. In fact, they were trying to avoid said navy men or military guards. When he bothered to look, they hadn’t even taken his groceries. Oh sweet lord above. He wasn’t sure if this was better or worse.

Without much thought, he kicked the hardest he had in these last few moments. “Put me down! Right now!” he even threw in a somewhat failed elbow for good measure.

Whoever was carrying him, their grip unfortunately didn’t falter enough to be getting him anywhere. “Ow! Fuck! Captain never told us the kid was such a brat, think we should knock him out?”

“I’m not a kid!” Cloud kicked again, hopefully harder.

“I’ll do it,” this was a new voice, quiet and unfamiliar. “I’ve got this.”

Cloud opened his mouth to yell again, and then promptly felt something hit him rather hard, and he didn’t think at all much after that.

 

* * *

 

By the time Sora had finished chasing around his hat, and then pacing back and forth up and down the harbour swinging his lamp around for lack of anything better to do until Leon had told him to stop it, a few people were actually making their way back.

Firstly had been Riku, who hadn’t gone very far off in the first place. He was a respectable kid, who was one of the few that actually listened when he got told there was going to be something of a curfew for once, and possibly the only one to show up early for it.

He politely waved at Leon, told him he had no news, and then went over to where Sora was now laying down on the planks out of boredom. He slowly sat down, and Sora leaned up on his elbows with an ear to ear smile.

They started talking, Riku too quiet for Leon to hear, and Sora loud enough to hear from a block away. Leon nearly smiled. Had anyone asked, he would’ve claimed that he was simply grateful there was finally something to occupy Sora and to keep him from driving him nuts. Truthfully, he was glad Sora had Riku specifically to occupy himself with, or really that he had Riku in general. In all honesty, he was good for Sora, and vice versa. But he wouldn’t admit to it. Never. Leon certainly couldn’t have people thinking he genuinely deeply cared for his younger cousin and the state of his relationships. (Not that it was an especially hard conclusion to come to, considering all Leon had done to help the two of them out.)

Sora and Riku’s idle chatter aside, it was quiet for a bit. Far quieter than it had been. Comfortably so. Even so, after a few minutes it didn’t take long for a few more people to start moseying along.

Specifically, Roxas and Aqua were both making their way down, both looking rather serious, and some varying degree of pissed off. Aqua waved and nodded with all the politeness and grace expected of her, and Roxas nearly elbowed her when she nearly went into a more formal bow. He must’ve been upset about something, considering Aqua could beat the living daylights out of him if he ever tried to start a fight with her, and elbowing her wouldn’t be far from it.

“Anything?” Leon called with a vague wave.

They both shook their heads, Aqua mouthing “no,” as she did it. Roxas walked past Leon, briefly waving to Sora in a somewhat awkward show of routine sibling companionship, who clumsily twisted to wave back, and then he kept on going down towards the ship.

Sora watched him go, frowning a little, “He looks _p-re-tty_ pissed off,” he turned back around to Riku with a shrug.

“He thought he saw him, and Kairi was teasing him on the way back,” Aqua sighed, and stopped next to Leon. “We didn’t really find anything...we’re lucky a good deal of the military isn’t in town and we’ve at least had a decent chance to poke around.”

“Yeah. I’d still like to get out of here as soon as possible. Ideally tomorrow, if we can.” Leon replied, arms crossed.

“Agreed.”

“I don’t fancy being seen by the military over this way, much less caught...or ending up having an encounter with the general,” Riku pitched in.

“I’ll fight him myself if he goes anywhere near you!” Sora scrambled up further on his elbows, nearly knocking over his nearby light in the process. “I mean it! I’ll do it! If he does anything to you, or if he so much as looks at you funny, I’ll get him! He’s a dead man!”

The other three sighed, although Riku had a small and fond smile doing it.

Leon seemed to cross his arms tighter. “Sora, you won’t be fighting the general. If you so much as try, I’ll drag you home by the ears.” He paused for a moment, and when Sora seemed to be about to say something he continued. “I’ll tell your mother what you’ve been doing, and you’ll be grounded for a year.”

Sora looked scandalized, and opened his mouth to retort, but was promptly interrupted by a yell from down the harbour. Everyone turned and squinted, but even from a distance there was no mistaking that lanky frame and bright hair. Nor the fact that he had someone thrown over his shoulder.

“Oh sweet lord above,” Aqua murmured. “I’ve had enough for tonight, I’ll be getting going.” Before anyone said much she was near running more than walking down towards the ship. Leon looked like he was ready to put his head in his hands and call it a night.

“Leave it to him to get into trouble, or make some,” Riku said. “I think I’ll head back too, if anyone else wants to go. I don’t think we all need to be out here all night, I’m sure whoever's left can find their way back.”

Sora suddenly leaped up off of the planks, on his feet with astounding speed and coordination almost unexpected from someone who regularly nearly broke limbs entirely from tripping over things (especially his own feet).

He lifted the lantern, and leaned and squinted towards the colourful group slowly coming their way. He smiled in that way that wasn’t quite fake, but it was disingenuous and vaguely uncomfortable enough that it wasn’t hard to tell he wanted to get going. “Well, it looks like he’s got the girls! Which would mean…” Sora trailed off, and started mouthing names as he counted off fingers on one hand, “That would mean everyone is back! So we can all get out of here,” he was already bouncing up the wharf as he spoke, lamp bouncing along with him. Riku and Leon shared a quick glance of mutual solidarity in the headache they were probably both going to be having very soon.

“I hope it’s not anyone too important,” Riku muttered.

Leon sighed, even closing his eyes as he did it. “Knowing him? It absolutely is.”

Sora turned back around, and hooked his arms through both of their elbows to pull them onto the ship faster. With every step, the lantern he now had thrown in the crook of his elbow lightly hit Riku in the side. After a few more steps he practically had them running, but it was in that way that it could perhaps be passed off for fast walking if you didn’t look too closely at their entirely false nonchalance.

They half-dashed up onto the ship, Sora practically dragging the other two alongside him.

As they hit the deck all three hoped, somewhat desperately, that for once in his life Axel hadn’t stirred up big trouble.


	2. pack your bags and your nets, you must get out of here

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on a sidenote yes im taking advantage of this being my one chance in life of being able to title chapters with lyrics of all the shanties and irish songs ive got memorized

Axel (whose name was technically Lea, which he thought sounded an awful lot less intimidating in terms of pirate names) was someone who was infamous for the amount of trouble he often found himself in. His escapades were well-known among his friends and even some foes alike. He was like a magnet for bad life choices and even worse situations, whether they happened by his own actions or by pure luck and coincidence. It didn’t tend to matter, and he tended to end up bringing trouble with him wherever he went.

So it was no stretch of the imagination for Leon and a few of the crew to be a little afraid about what they’d be facing when he got back.

Leon himself had went and shut himself in his cabin, declaring that he had a headache and was going to sleep before it got too late, and that unless Axel was out setting himself on fire on the deck or something equally as urgent, no one was to be bugging him.

That left Sora and Riku out on the deck, along with a somewhat surly Roxas. Aqua had disappeared into the ship before they’d gotten back, but there were still a few others hanging around. One was Demyx, who absolutely had a few drinks in him, and he was having a bit of a debate with Aerith over whether it was too late to go retrieve one of the instruments he took around with him. It was hard to tell if Aerith was sober, seeing as no one had ever especially seen her drunk, but it was a good enough guess to say she was sober enough.

It wasn’t long before Sora, Riku, and Roxas ended up sitting down around the lantern Sora had finally laid down on the deck. Roxas rolled his eyes when he saw Demyx running off across the deck, Aerith seemingly jokingly shaking her fist behind him as she watched him go.

Sora leaned his chin on one hand, sat cross-legged on the planks. “So what did you guys do today?”

“Not much.” Riku attempted a shrug, sitting with his knees up and arms on top of them.

Sora turned to his brother, expectant.

Roxas sighed, rolling his eyes, “I got bugged by Kairi for half the day, ‘cause I thought I saw him, and she kept teasing me about it and I told her to lay off, blah blah blah. Still no real sign of anything good.” He had his arms wrapped around his knees, looking a smidge more put out than pissed off.

Sora nodded sympathetically. “Hopefully things’ll get sorted soon! I know you’re worried about him, but I’m sure it’ll be alright!” he reached over to nudge his brother in shoulder with one hand, and Roxas barely cracked a smile, but it was better than nothing.

A moment later Demyx came stumbling back across the deck, strumming the strings of  _ something _ that sounded more than a little out of tune. “Mandolin?” Riku mouthed to the others, looking bamboozled. Roxas shook his head, mouthing back, “Lute.”

Halfway across the deck, Aerith had a hand to her forehead and looked like she may try to lob something at him. Demyx was plucking strings, trying in vain to make the poor thing sound better, but then seemed to give up and started playing anyways. Riku buried his head in his arms when he really got going. It really sounded like he more than possibly needed a new lute.

When Demyx started singing some ditty he’d most certainly made up, Sora slowly cracked a smile. “Y’know, this reminds me of that time—”

“Oh! That time with Axel and that time in, uh, fuck...” Roxas trailed off and Riku looked back up.

“Prankster’s Paradise?” Riku chimed in.

“No, no,” Roxas paused, and then he and Sora both spoke at the same time with an enthusiastic, “Port Royal!”

Sora slapped on hand off a knee, already wheezing a light laugh. “Yeah that guy was playing a lute by that place we went for supper! And then Axel went off for a dance and we all know how that went,” he cut himself off laughing. His brother rolled his eyes.

“I swear, there is  _ nothing _ I’ve seen him do that was as good as that.”

“The slippers really topped it all off,” Riku added. Sora wheezed so hard he nearly fell over. “The baloney story is pretty good too, but—”

“But you just can’t top that night in fucking Port Royal,” Roxas cut in again, almost laughing behind his smile. “I still can’t believe he managed to have that happen to him.”

“He just comes walking up to the ship like that, not a care in the world, and everyone was there leaning over the railing watching him,”

Roxas dramatically put a hand up against his cheek, and tried for a few half decent imitations of some of the crew. “ _ Oh Axel, is that the new spring fashion? Where can I get those slippers? It must’ve been such a deal...and that pattern really suits you! Is that the new style? Oh, the colour accentuates your eyes, but you’ll be freezing once we get out on the sea, _ ”

Sora finally doubled over laughing. He coughed and gasped between wheezing and laughing. “We should—we should pay Demyx to write a song about it,”

“It’d be  _ awful _ ,”

“That’s why we need it!”

“I don’t know if he’d hate it or love it,”

“I mean, we’d find out!”

Riku gave a dry smile. “We’d all be eating lunch one day and look over to see him stringing Demyx up like a flag or something,”

Both of the twins snorted at that. Then Roxas lifted a hand to cover his mouth when he saw Axel himself coming up behind Sora, with some poor fellow slung over his shoulder. Sora didn’t catch on, but was quick to shut up when he heard a drawled, “What are you all laughing about?” from behind.

His brother and his best friend both smiled at him in that kinda awkward and kinda mischievous way that had him staring down at the deck. He didn’t even bother turning around to say anything to Axel, and once he was decently out of range, Roxas laughed and moved to elbow him in the shoulder.

“Really good one there Sor,”

“Oh can it,” Sora’s voice was muffled from behind the hand he seemed to be trying to bury his face in. Roxas elbowed him again, and Sora had half a smile behind his hand. “You can pack off,”

Without much warning, Kairi sauntered over and stood beside them. She leaned over and gave a wave with a cheerful “Evening boys!”

The boys replied with a chorus of “Evening’s” and waves of various levels of enthusiasm. Roxas stuck his tongue out at her, and she returned the gesture in kind.

“Sorry about today Roxy, I know you’re pretty on edge. Probably should’ve kept my mouth shut.”

He shrugged, in lighter spirits than he’d been earlier that evening. “It’s alright, I’ll live,”

Axel called something from halfway across the deck, and Kairi popped back up. She lightly ruffled both Sora and Roxas’ hair, which had both of them batting at her hands. “Sorry guys, gotta go help my idiot brother with something.”

“Tell him not to disturb the captain, he said no disturbances him unless Axel is out here setting himself on fire or something,” Riku called as she started walking away.

“Will do!” Kairi waved as she went.

The boys went back to chatting, until Sora suddenly perked up and dug a pack of cards out of one of his pockets.

“Poker or old maid?”

Riku scoffed. “You don’t know how to play poker.”

“Okay, yeah, maybe so. So old maid or slapjack?”

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Over across the deck, Axel was looking at Kairi with that kind of sheepish smile that she knew meant he needed help with something possibly troublesome. Or, more accurately, something he would owe her one for.

She glanced back over her shoulder at the boys, who Xion had just plopped down alongside, sprawled out carefree as ever on the deck. She looked back at her brother, one eyebrow raised and unimpressed.

“What exactly do you need?”

“Like I said on the way back, we’re gonna have to go talk to the captain,”

“The captain said, and apparently I quote,” she uncrossed her arms just to do air quotes, “not to disturb him unless ‘Axel sets himself on fire on the ship’ or something to that effect.”

“But he likes you more than me! So he might not slam the door on you.”

Kairi frowned. “As much as I love you and you’re my brother, it’s risky, so you’ll owe me,”

Axel’s grin veered even further into sheepish. “Oh I’ll definitely owe you one. But I wanna get mister unconscious off of my back, and hopefully soothe the captain’s nerves enough that he won’t yell at me for bugging him.”

Kairi cracked a smile and shrugged. “Fair enough. Let’s go deal with captain grumpy-pants before you snap in half.”

“Oh c’mon, one rich boy isn’t gonna break my back!”

“Hate to break it to you, but you’re built like a toothpick Lea,” she scoffed. Axel poked her with an elbow, and she stumbled with a laugh. “See! It carried over to me too, I bet we’d both blow away in the wind.”

The two of them ambled along towards their captain’s cabin, lightly bantering back and forth, all on the backdrop of Demyx’s continued lute strumming. In all honesty, Kairi was a bit impressed that her broomstick of a brother had managed to carry the poor fellow on his back as far as he had, but he looked like he was starting to strain.

“Alright. I’ll talk to the captain, you stand behind me and be quiet,” she gently elbowed her brother away from the door. As she raised a hand to knock, she looked over and saw Riku looking over and shaking his head, although no one else had seemed to notice. She gave a toothy cheeky smile back and then a solid few knocks on the door.

It took a few moments, but Leon eventually begrudgingly opened the door. He squinted at the siblings, and Kairi gave her most award winning smile.

Leon himself looked very much like he’d just rolled out of bed, and was only half awake. His shirt was halfway tucked into his pants, bangs in his face, bags under his eyes (although that was somewhat of his constant state these past few days), and no shoes or boots to speak of, not even socks. Axel almost had to hold back a laugh, he’d nearly never seen the captain quite so openly dishevelled. He looked every part of a grumpy, half-asleep lion, especially with the following wide yawn he looked increasingly disgruntled to be experiencing.

He looked around Kairi to squint further at Axel. “What do you want.” Leon deadpanned, more of a statement than a question.

Lea gave a cheeky little wave.

“Simply put,” Kairi paused, and leaned in to drop her voice so as not to attract any attention (not that there was much worry of that, with Demyx now practically wailing on his lute.) “Lea figures that fellow he’s been carting around is your  _ very important _ missing cousin.” She motioned behind her with one thumb. Leon’s eyebrows went up, although he still didn’t entirely seem awake.

He glanced around one redhead to the other again, and his eyebrows went up further at the sight of a familiar-looking mop of blond spiky hair on Lea’s shoulder.

He slowly moved out of the doorway, and Kairi and Axel quickly and somewhat awkwardly shuffled in. Leon had his hands over his face, and sighed heavily.

After a few moments of awkward standing around in the low light one low-burning lantern provided, Leon finally raised his hands to brush his hair out of his face and looked up at the other two. “Alright.  _ Alright _ . It’s too late to be dealing with this, but I trust you two can keep quiet?”

“Aye,”

“Yessir!”

Both siblings tried to give a salute, but on Lea’s end it ended up closer to him nearly dropping the poor fellow on his back.

For another moment or two, Leon didn’t say anything, just standing there and seemingly thinking. “Can I put him on the couch?” Axel said, sounding decently strained. Leon startled a bit, absolutely still not awake.

“Oh, yes, of course,” he waved him off, his other hand trying to cover a yawn.

Lea happily trotted off towards the couch, and set that unconscious blond down on it with a sigh of relief, although he nearly knocked over the coffee table in the process.

While he was over there, Kairi cautiously stepped over towards her captain. “Hey, captain?” Kairi’s voice was low, but enough to make it through to him.

“Hm?” Leon looked over, blinking at Kairi.

“Do you think it’s really him?” Kairi motioned over towards her brother with one hand. “Like, he matches the description and all, but it’s not like me or Lea have ever met him.”

Leon looked over towards Axel, and frowned a little. “We’ll take a quick look, but I trust your judgement.”

“Should we get Sora or Roxas in here?”

“Oh god no, Sora would put half the ship up over it,” Leon sighed. “It’s too late to deal with that, I’ll talk to him in the morning.”

Kairi nodded with an almost joking smile, and the two of them made their way over to the couch Axel was now sitting beside on the floor. He was sprawled out, all gangly limbs, and Leon nearly tripped over one of his legs.

Lea didn’t bother getting up off the floor as his sister and the captain looked down at the blond fellow passed out (rather comfortably, he may add, proud of his work at putting him down right and not dropping the poor guy on accident) on the couch. He’d even put a blanket over him! A job well done, as far as he was concerned.

He’d also taken the fellow’s sword and put it up on the coffee table, for safety he supposed. When she came over, Kairi absentmindedly took it and set it over on a more out of the way cabinet, as it was far too easy to walk into a sword laying on a coffee table.

Although Kairi and Lea couldn’t say much about all of this, it was Leon who had the real say in the whole debacle.

No one said anything as Leon squinted at the blond, going through a mental checklist. Despite the fact that he was unconscious, he seemed enough like Leon’s missing cousin.

He had the same spiky blond hair, and even if it seemed a bit longer than the last time he’d seen him, well, it’d been years since Leon had spent any time with him, and he’d been missing for a while as well. He couldn’t say much as to whether his clothes were out of place, once again, simply because he’d been gone for long enough to have absolutely acquired a new outfit somewhere down the road. He had the same pale-ish complexion, as in a maybe slightly ghastly pale, the kind of thing one acquired from likely not enough sunlight, a far cry from Leon and the twins’ looks thanks to their much sunnier home. And despite how he was laid down on the couch, he was obviously shorter than Axel, and absolutely shorter than himself to be fitting on the couch that well. Leon may have not seen his cousin of a cousin properly in years, but he knew he had always been a good deal shorter.

Now, the sword he’d had on his hip. That was unfamiliar but also unsurprising; his cousin had always expressed interest in sword fighting but had mostly been disallowed, and he certainly had enough money to go about acquiring one away from home.

In the low light, he seemed to look less like Roxas than Leon remembered, yet in his half asleep eyes, that wasn’t setting off any red flags. It wasn’t like the two of them were twins.

Leon backed away, nodding slightly. “If you two can keep quiet, I’ll talk to the twins in the morning, but it seems to be him,” his voice was more mumbling than speaking, but at least Kairi caught it and gave a sharp nod.

Then she grabbed her brother by the elbow, and started hauling him up as Leon walked back across the room.

“C’mon lazy bum, get up! You can’t stay hov off in the captain’s quarters all night!” Kairi managed to practically haul him to his feet. Anyone who didn’t know the siblings may have been surprised at the sight of a small girl managing to bring her much taller toothpick of a brother to his feet. Despite all the things she said, Kairi was a good deal more stocky than Lea.

“Are we all done here already?”

“Mmhm! And it’s late anyways, he’ll probably kick us out soon if we don’t get out,”

“Oh c’mon, it’s not that late!”

Kairi rolled her eyes, well aware that what her brother considered “normal hours” were usually far from it.

Leon turned to the two of them, running a hand through his hair again. “Remember, keep quiet about this for now.”

Both siblings gave something between a lazy wave and a half salute, with a near simultaneous “Yessir!”

“And, one of you find and tell Yuffie we’ll be leaving tomorrow. I’d rather be out of here as soon as possible.”

They both nodded and waved again, Kairi still somewhat dragging her brother along by the arm towards the door.

It didn’t take them long to mosey on out the door, leaving Leon alone. He sat down on his bed and sighed, finally slouching his shoulders forward.

Slowly, he drew his legs up on the bed, and contemplated over whether he should just go to bed still decently dressed as he had tried to earlier. After a bit of staring at the ceiling, the will to be comfortable in bed won out over exhaustion, and he slowly got up again, both the bed and his own joints creaking as he sat up and stretched out.

He stretched his arms up before lazily pulling off his shirt, then pants, and he threw on a bed shirt with nothing to note. Without much thought, he turned out the low lights still burning, and climbed into bed.

Despite the amount of stress and exhaustion Leon was under, he was far from asleep when his head hit the pillow. Even in the darkness, he couldn’t help looking over at the couch, and then up at the ceiling, and the nearby wall on the other side.

He wanted to be able to say he was comforted; happy to find what he was looking for and to be done with this whole debacle and soon home and then off again. But, somehow, it all seemed too easy.

Maybe it was his own expectations. He’d almost expected the worst, or at least more challenge than this, especially considering that particular cousin’s degree of nobility. He’d nearly been expecting some kind of high stakes adventure, that would be unfortunately riddled with countless shenanigans, (likely at the hands of Sora and Axel) that would keep not only himself but some of the other crew (likely Zexion and Roxas the most) frazzled and at the ends of their ropes. Maybe Leon was a little too used to adventure, he saw a fair share of it whether he liked it or not.

(Without much meaning to, Leon couldn’t help flashing through the highlights and aftermath of a few of their adventures. Like Aerith getting stabbed and treating it like a paper cut and Tifa nearly killing him for it when they’d arrived home, or Axel’s countless notable instances of trouble, or Yuffie’s often less drastic but also still notable shenanigans. Or perhaps more minorly that time Zexion had tried to tame a bird and threatened to send it after people, or that time Xion and Riku had accidentally capsized a small ship, which was entirely it’s own story in terms of how things had gotten to that point. Or the few risky run-ins with Sephiroth himself. He didn’t like to think about those much, as that was getting out of the funny or silly incidents territory and more into real, serious danger that had resulted in absolutely not comedic injuries, no matter what Sora had to say about it afterwards.)

After letting that train of thought derail and crash, Leon backtracked to directly before.

Once again, somehow, this all seemed too easy. It was too simple, too uncomplicated, seemingly no strings attached, and no one injured or even in a fight.

They’d sailed all the way to Midgar, a risky move in itself for the simple likeliness of encountering Sephiroth, and now they were getting out quickly and without a hitch? Off scot free with exactly what they’d been looking for? It was far too easy.

But unfortunately, half asleep and staring at wooden plank walls in the dark, Leon couldn’t quite grasp how this would all inevitably unravel before him. He was sure of it, he just couldn’t quite reason how.

Eventually, after going around in fruitless and not quite entirely awake mental circles, Leon rolled over and shut his eyes. He wasn’t long falling asleep then, as if his general exhaustion had finally bothered to catch up with him.

As he fell asleep, he vaguely hoped that for once in his life things would go perfectly, all exactly according to plan. He probably should have known better, after all the years of piracy, that it was a fool’s errand to think it would be smooth sailing.

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Shortly after dawn, Leon was already up out of bed and getting dressed with a quick although  still fumblingly drowsy efficiency. After hauling on his boots he spared a glance at the sleeping blond on the couch, and briskly toed his way over to the windows, drawing the curtains closed with a yawn. He nodded to himself before continuing on out the door, which unsurprisingly already had Yuffie waiting on the other side. She sharply knocked just as Leon lightly scowled and opened it, stepping out and locking it behind him.

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Later in the morning, the sun filtered in through still-drawn curtains. It was mild enough to leave Cloud undisturbed for some hours past sunrise. When he did wake up, he was surprisingly cozy.

As he yawned and rolled over, it didn’t really register exactly where he was, or the fact that he was still fully clothed. Even barely awake he considered himself lucky for not being in a jail cell; unless jail cells had very suddenly gotten much, much more comfortable.

For some likely short but hazily indeterminate amount of time he snuggled up, content to be warm and comfortable. It was nice to be safe and home for another day, even if he did slowly realize he had fallen asleep in his boots.

Ever so slowly, Cloud started to sit up in bed, only to realize very abruptly he was not in a bed, nor in his own home. He jolted upright, unsure of where he was or exactly what kind of trouble he was in, but he was sure it couldn’t be good.

He quickly tried to stand up, fumbled with the blanket he was wrapped up in, and managed to roll himself off of the couch and right into the legs of a coffee table. He managed to stumble into leaning onto the table, and then finally onto his feet, and then right into the table and toppled arse over easy again. At least there was thankfully a rug on the floor.

Cloud was having a hard time keeping himself steady, and ended up leaning over the coffee table as he tried to get his bearings, feeling like his head was spinning. The layout of the room seemed somehow familiar, but he couldn’t quite grasp it.

He wasn’t sure if the sense of nausea and really generally feeling discombobulated was a consequence of being knocked out, or possibly a hangover from the very few drinks he’d had. It almost felt like motion sickness, almost like the unfortunately familiar sensation of an unpleasant morning on the boat, but he figured it was pretty unlikely that he was actually on some kind of boat.

He rested his forehead on one hand, mumbling a “Dear lord above,” as he tried his best to quell the horrible combination of rolling nausea and the headache flashing behind his eyes. Put together it made him feel terribly close to passing out.

As it started to ebb away, little by little, Cloud tried his best to take stock of his situation while on the floor and clinging to a coffee table with one arm for dear life.

No one else was in the room at least, no one to watch a poor (former?) navy-man slated for the chopping block embarrass himself without even being able to stand on his own two feet. He vaguely noted his sword was gone, but that seemed to be of lesser concern at this point. He looked over at the other side of the room, one eye still squeezed shut, and beyond closed curtains there was some sun coming in, so it was daytime at the very least. What day it was, he had no idea, but he hoped he’d only been out for the night.

The room, as far as he could see with still-bleary eyes, was decorated with what seemed to be sturdy but still on the higher end of things looking furniture. Not the kind of sturdy furniture one might find in Midgar outside of the more posh areas, the kind that was sturdy but rough. Made to last, but not easy on the eyes, or the limbs if you happened to be bumping into it.

Thinking about it, that was something of an easy way to describe things in the common parts of Midgar. Either built to last but rough and likely unpleasant in some manner, or painfully flimsy. Once Cloud had gone over to a sailor’s house to help out with something, and had nearly broken a chair just from sitting in it, which was quite the accomplishment considering he was a pretty light five and a half feet of blond. Midgar was generally a city that stubbornly stood the test of time, no matter how much it probably should have blown away or fallen apart years ago.

Cloud groaned as he realized he wasn’t entirely sure if he was even still in Midgar.

The answer should have been a resounding yes; Midgar was a big city, and who knows what could have happened to land him somewhere like this. For all he knew he could’ve been forgetting some whole string of events that had happened for him to end up here.

In fact, this whole thing was hauntingly reminiscent of the time he’d woken up hungover in Zack’s kitchen after having been out with Zack and one of his drinking buddies that had ended up drinking them all under the table. It was even worse considering that was the first time he’d been in Zack’s kitchen, or his house in general, and he had had no idea where he was until the man himself had strolled into the kitchen to sit on the table and eat hardtack while shirtless. Classic Zack. Cloud missed those times dearly, as much as he hadn’t quite enjoyed them at the time.

After swiveling his head around a few more times, and not being able to clearly figure out anything helpful about his surroundings, nor confident enough to try to get back on his feet, Cloud gave up and somewhat cautiously thunked his his head down onto the coffee table. Maybe, if no one else was here, and no one seemed to be coming by, he could just stay like this for a bit. Just until he could properly get his bearings, and then see about getting up and figuring out where he was and what the hell was going on. At the very least no one was bothering him, or coming to drag him out for the noose. Any port in a storm he supposed, or at least any coffee table he could viciously hang onto while waiting for a number of sickly feelings to quell.

So Cloud stayed there, forehead firmly on the nicely cool coffee table, desperately trying not to think too much about how possibly fucked he was. It was better to try to enjoy the peace and quiet while it lasted. In fact, he almost started to drift off in his vaguely comfortable position, even if he knew more than well it would leave a wicked ache in his back later.

Well, despite it all, things could be worse.

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


They’d managed to set sail not too much later than eight o’clock that morning, and Leon was feeling pleased about it. It was more than a tad soothing to be back out on open waters, even if he was still somewhat on edge by how smoothly things were going at least they were going smoothly in the meantime.

But just because he was content about the general state of things going forward didn’t mean Leon was in the most spectacular mood. Specifically, a good dozen or two days of stress having piled up on him, along with a certain (regrettably) trusty pirate who had been chattering at him since sunrise had his feathers a bit ruffled. Perhaps mildly rustled jimmies.

As much as she could be a fantastic help, not to mention an increasingly top tier thief, Yuffie Kisaragi was an incessant chatterbox. His latest method of getting her out of his hair for a little bit was sending her off to scamper up to the crow’s nest for a bit, which was exactly where she was at that moment.

Leon sighed and leaned against the railing, waiting for Roxas to finish his latest bout of fencing with Xion. The two of them had taken to practicing sword-fighting on the deck when neither was needed anywhere, although they doubtlessly did it to shirk responsibility at times too. And he still hadn’t really gotten around to talking to Roxas.

It had been a busy morning so far, with much of the crew being just as if not more eager than Leon to get out of Midgar. There was a certain carefree air now that they were back out on the water, as in the city had been tense for a variety of reasons. For Leon, it was somewhere between wanting to find his cousin as quickly as possible, and the fact that no one knew where a fair chunk of the higher-ups of the sizeable Midgar-based military had gone off to or when they’d be back. For most, it was probably a fear of that military that motivated them to want to get out, although there were at least a thousand and one reasons out there for one not to want to be in Midgar.

All in all, it wasn’t exactly a pleasant trip. Sure, there were worse trips out there to be taking, but it wasn’t anything really enjoyable either.

Being quite honest, Leon preferred to just steer clear of Midgar. A city like that, and with the size and scale it was, that was just begging for trouble. As far as he was concerned, nearly nothing good ever happened when they went to Midgar. It would pretty much always end with either a close call with a large military force, or someone landing themselves in jail or getting lost or something else equally as stupid and avoidable.

While Roxas and Xion continued going at it, with Leon paying them half attention, Aqua silently came to lean next to him on the railing. Yet another person Leon hadn’t entirely given all the details, once again waiting to talk to Roxas first, but she knew enough that she looked a little less weighed down by all the stress.

Aqua turned around to look out at the ocean instead of the teens weaving their way around the busy deck. Leon spared a glance. She looked tired, exhausted even, but she still stood with a straight-backed poise. Aqua was always one to put her best foot forward, proud and refined. It was all the easier to tell she was nobility for it.

She sighed, not even properly turning to Leon. “Do you think this is it? That we’ll be able to go back home so soon, and this will all be over?” Aqua was quiet enough not to be overheard, especially not on a busy morning.

“I hope so.” Leon frowned, crossing his arms.

She nodded, and there was a shout from the other side of the deck. Leon turned his head back and she whipped around, only for both of them to see Roxas pinned to a mast. Xion’s sword was through the fabric of his shirt, pinning both him and it to the wood. Thankfully she hadn’t actually nicked him this time, just the shirt. A short while ago, one of their little matches had resulted in some bandages and two grumpy bleeding teens having to clean blood off of the deck.

From up on the crow’s nest, Yuffie yelled down “GOOD FINISHER! YOU GOT HIM!” and it was hard to see but she undoubtedly had one hand in the air.

Xion stood in front of him, triumphant. She had her hands on her hips, and his sword in her hand, however she had managed that. When she let Roxas go with a good-natured laugh and pat on the back he looked a bit more embarrassed than anything, but still smiling. She tossed him his sword and he fumbled with it for a moment but then was off, jogging over towards Leon.

Once he was in range he fixed the sword back to his belt and gave a nod. “Sorry, I know you wanted to talk to me today,” he shrugged, easily throwing one hand on his hip.

“It’s alright.” Leon pushed himself off the railing, but Aqua seemingly beat him to the punch and walked off without so much as a wave. So Leon let himself relax back, and Roxas puttered over to stand beside him.

“So, what’s the deal? I heard we’re headed for home,”

Leon was quiet for a moment, as if trying to sort out his words. When he spoke, it was lowly, and he was quick to sum things up.

Roxas was silent for a moment, mouth wordlessly left open. Then, with a smile, “Let me guess, you’re telling me first because Sora wouldn't be able to keep it quiet? And we’ve gotta keep it under the table.”

Leon nodded without a word and a barely-there smile.

“Can I go see him?” Roxas said, and he sounded eager. Almost excitable in a way that was usually reserved for his twin.

“That was the plan. You can go wake him up, just don’t make a racket over it.”

Roxas smiled, almost ear-to-ear, once again in a way that was far more common for Sora than him. It wasn’t often obvious they were twins, but when it was it was painfully so. “Yes sir!”

He walked off with a skip in his step that was still uncharacteristic, but it was nice to see him so cheerful. Leon turned around and almost smiled to himself. Things seemed to be looking up. It wasn’t often they had luck this good, or any good luck at all outside of Sora, who had almost abnormally good luck, so he wasn’t one to be taking it for granted.

It was easier to ignore the vague sinking feeling about it all on such a nice day, it was easier to take things as a good sign rather than bad. It was even a smidge easier to ignore the fact that his brain was yelling at him to be more practical about this. Maybe he wasn’t happy as a clam, but Roxas’ excitement was a little infectious, so Leon could watch the waves with a perhaps also uncharacteristic carefree feeling that perhaps things were going his way, just this once.


	3. oh me, oh my

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yknow writing this i was like "haha im gonna consistently update a multichapter thing for once in my life" and then i got my wisdom teeth out and spent like a month being sick/generally being kicked in the knees by circumstances so now here we are

When Cloud woke up, it was to the unpleasant realization that he’d fully dozed off in the first place. It was more of an annoyance than a legitimate concern, and the crick it had put in his back was unfortunately just as predicted. Somehow he’d managed to slip off of the coffee table in his sleep, and was bunched between the table and the couch.

He hit his knees on the underside of the table in a groggy attempt to sit up, but managed to shuffle himself into sitting up against the side of the couch after a few fumbling attempts. He rubbed a hand through his hair, and then stretched his arms up, grimacing at the sound of his back cracking. Unfortunately, that nauseous feeling he’d been trying to dodge hadn’t really left either. If anything it almost felt worse.

Before Cloud could really wake up, there was a sudden knocking sound that startled him into knocking his knees against the coffee table again. He swivelled his head around for a moment before landing on the door. There was another knock, and Cloud tried to scramble to his feet but only really succeeded on both scrambling into sitting on the couch and tangling himself in his blanket.

“Hey, are you up?” The voice on the other side of the door sounded soft. The latch turned, and the door creaked open. Cloud couldn’t do much but attempt not to panic. “Are you feeling alright?”

Cloud squinted at the light coming in through the door, but it was only moments before a blond teen stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. Thankfully, he didn’t look like a navy cadet, or even a soldier, or military in general. If anything, he looked like some of the more vaguely trouble-making kids that hung around in Midgar; dressed in a plain shirt and loose pants, with what looked like a black jacket slung over one shoulder.

It took a few moments, but he caught side of Cloud, and his expression quickly went from strangely charitable, to confused, to far more pissed off than confused. “You’re not Ventus?” he asked, sounding somehow offended.

“No?” Cloud offered up, trying his best not to sound like he wasn’t still kind of afraid for his life. Not to mention that he was beyond bamboozled and had a one-handed death grip on the blanket he was tangled up in. He made to pull it up around himself, as if that would help.

The blond stared at him for a minute, then glanced between Cloud and the door a few times, looking increasingly pissed off with each turn. Cloud couldn’t figure out exactly what it was that he’d done, and just stupidly stared back.

Then, with surprising speed, and sound, (his footsteps were _loud_ ) he walked across the room with long strides and grabbed Cloud’s arm. Without much warning, or really any at all, he started tugging Cloud along, who tripped and caught himself in the blanket and nearly took both of them down. The blond weaved his way around the room, leaving Cloud to bump into all the furniture along the way, more disoriented than ever. Between the lingering nausea and being practically dragged out of the room, he had a hard enough time staying on his feet, let alone getting his bearings or keeping pace.

Once they reached the door the blond yanked it open, and Cloud blinked at the sudden light, even tripping backwards a little like he’d seen cats do before. As he hauled both of them out the door, the blond took in what was an obviously large breath, almost theatrically so, and started yelling; hollering “Leon! _LEON!_ ” repeatedly as they went.

As he stumbled into the sunlight, Cloud looked around, still stunned silent. He wasn’t quite alert enough to properly process or respond to what he was seeing, or more specifically to the very, very sudden realization that he was in fact on a ship. A ship that seemed to be in the middle of the ocean. And not at all populated by the navy.

A merchant ship? He wasn’t sure whether to hope it was a merchant ship. That could be very good, or very bad.

He continued staggering along behind the blond, who was still yelling, but seemed to be getting a bit winded. He huffed and puffed between calling for whoever Leon was as he marched along the deck at a quite frankly slightly frightening speed.

Cloud wasn’t exactly paying attention to what was going on there, too busy trying to process the fact that he was on a ship and trying to figure out _how_ , so he didn’t notice when the blond abruptly stopped in his tracks. He walked, or more accurately, knocked right into him and nearly sent the both of them toppling over considering he was a decent deal taller than the blond, and seemingly heavier too. Yet they still managed to stay upright, which was for the best considering Cloud wasn’t overly sure he’d make it back to his feet if he was knocked off of them.

He was busy enough staring stupidly at the ocean and thinking about how close he was to falling over on the spot that he didn’t notice the fellow in front of them who the blond had fixed with a beyond sour look.

“Roxas?”

The blond motioned to Cloud with the hand not holding his arm in a vice grip. “Leon.” His voice was curt, and his gestures choppy to match. “This is _not_ my cousin.”

Leon stood there for a moment, in almost the same stupefied way Cloud was, staring at the taller blond with a look that seemed to be a vague mix of embarrassment and regret. “Oh. I can see that.” He said, smartly.

“Explain.”

Leon brought one hand up to the bridge of his nose and looked very much like he would throw himself into the ocean if he could. It took him a few moments, but he managed to quickly sum up the night before, in as few words as possible.

Roxas dramatically threw his head back and groaned. “Of course this is Axel’s fault! Of course it is! It’s always his fault! One of these days I’m going to hang him by his fucking toes! I’ll box his ears!”

Cloud glanced over at Roxas for a moment, somewhere between increasingly confused and slightly panicked.

“Language,” Leon muttered, more out of habit than anything.

“Oh pack off,” Roxas sighed, also out of habit.

“Your mother will have a fit if I bring you home talking like that.” They’d been through this song and dance a thousand times before.

Again, dramatically, Roxas sighed again, although it was a touch more toned down this time. “Fine. _Fine_. I guess we just have this fellow now. Who is he anyways?”

Leon vaguely shrugged. “No idea.”

“Not the faintest?” Another shrug. “Seriously? Oh...Axel’s really done it this time.” Roxas made a pissed off non-word noise, even scrunched his face up a bit. He spent a few moments sourly staring into the distance, and then at Cloud, then back to Leon. “So what will we do with him?”

“It’s not like we’ve got much choice but to keep him here.”

“ _Great_. I guess we can’t throw him overboard?”

Leon fixed his younger cousin with an exasperated look. Roxas rolled his eyes back. They both shifted to look at Cloud, who was looking right back at them with a stunned kind of look. He opened his mouth, but it was a good moment before he actually got anything out. In that moment Leon thought about what an astonishing dumbass he must’ve been to think this fellow was his family; his face looked _nothing_ like any of his cousins when he was actually awake and moving. It really had just been the hair. Well, fairly enough, it wasn’t exactly a common look.

“...Keep me here?” Cloud’s voice came out weaker than intended, and he hoped he didn’t sound like the panicked idiot he most surely was. “You, you can’t just keep me here? Aren’t you sailors? I, uh, I could get you in trouble!” Cloud almost wanted to wince at how he sounded to himself, let alone how he must’ve sounded to the other two.

Roxas didn’t say a word; he simply stared at Leon and made a motion with his free hand. Leon sighed.

“Go put him back in the cabin, and then you can go complain at Axel. I’ll deal with him later.”

“Why can’t you deal with him now?” Roxas sounded about as close to teenage whining as he ever got.

“Because I’ve got to go deal with our scholar, because this means we have to reroute.” He didn’t mention that he would have to talk to Aqua as well. That would be distinctly unfun. This would all be distinctly unfun. All the good will Leon had had that morning had vanished in one very unpleasant instant, to be replaced with stress that would unavoidably giving him a headache down the line.

Roxas seemed to get the message that Leon was very suddenly not a happy camper, and curtly nodded and started slowly tugging Cloud back towards the room they’d just come from. Cloud swivelled his head back and forth as he went, still entirely bamboozled. Thankfully, Roxas was much more slow this time, almost as if dragging his feet.

When they reached the door again, Roxas more gently swung it open and patted Cloud on the arm, quite a bit better tempered towards him than before if not only out of exasperation. “Look, you stay here until the captain sees fit to deal with you, alright? I’m not responsible for anything the crew might do if you’re wandering around outside.”

“How long will he be?” Cloud figured asking what was going on was a waste of breath, and he didn’t especially fancy getting Roxas mad again.

Roxas shrugged. “Just stay put.”

Cloud nodded blankly, and Roxas unceremoniously shut the door, and then thought to lock it behind him as well. Without much else to do, and still feeling stupidly unstable on his feet, Cloud flopped down on the couch and resolved to be feeling better by the time the ship’s captain came by. He hoped he could convince the man he had only briefly met to take him to whatever port they were headed to. Really anywhere but back to Midgar.

He really hoped this was just a merchant ship.

 

* * *

 

It was no trouble to tell Leon wasn’t in a good mood when he went practically stomping across the ship. As a door fell closed behind him he caught sight of Roxas making a beeline for Axel.

After a few minutes of trudging along, he practically threw open the door of a small cabin. The only inhabitant was a young man curled up in a chair at the side of a small table, which was practically covered in open books and a pile of stray papers being held down by a compass. He didn’t seem particularly perturbed by the door suddenly and somewhat loudly swinging open, nor did he seem bothered by the sight of a visibly grumpy captain. Not to say the captain tended to visually show many emotions; most people tended to think he was grumpy by default, but this one was decently sure that was just his face.

He raised an eyebrow, almost dryly. Leon shut the door behind him with a vaguely annoyed sigh.

“Good afternoon captain,” he said loftily, undoubtedly aware he was close to pushing buttons.

“Good afternoon Zexion.” Leon huffed back.

Zexion slowly stretched out of his chair, grimacing at the audible cracks and unavoidable soreness that came from too long in one place. He kept one eyebrow raised, but Leon didn’t speak up. “Is there a problem you need my assistance with?”

Leon crossed his arms and closed his eyes, leaning back against the closed door. “We need to reroute.”

“Reroute?”

He nodded, not bothering to elaborate further.

“Where?” Zexion didn’t bother to ask why, there was only really one reason they would be going anywhere but their sudden change of plans to head home.

There was a pause. Zexion knew that going back to Midgar wasn’t much of an option, not only because no one would especially want to go again (in both his and Leon’s opinions, one trip to Midgar was enough for the next year, let alone next few days, thank you very much), but also the looming threat of a sizeable military and it’s return. On the other hand, Leon quickly ran through their planned route from beforehand, and knew his navigator would complain about putting them back on course for it, not to mention the risk of running into the currently absent Midgar-based military in a few of their planned destinations.

Another moment, and Zexion looked at him in expectant silence. Leon slightly sighed. “How about Disney?”

Zexion just stared for a few seconds, eyebrows coming together in confusion. “Disney?”

“It’d be unlikely the military was headed that way, and it’s as likely a place as any.”

“ _Disney?_ ”

Leon dryly raised an eyebrow back at him. “Would you rather head to Hollow Bastion?”

“Oh absolutely not,” Zexion seemed to snap up, already reaching for a scrap piece of paper. “That’s the second—no, wait, third-last place I’d rather be. Just...are you sure?”

“Yes. It’ll be fine. We’d have to pass by there or Hollow Bastion if we’re not headed towards home anyway.”

“...I suppose. Where in Disney would you like?” Zexion bordered on sarcastic with those last few words.

Leon looked back and forth, then, “May as well head to Disney Town itself.”

Zexion simply sighed, his one visible eye closing. “Captain. I’m sure you’re aware Disney Town and some of the problems it might present. It’s not exactly...ideal.”

“But we’re on good terms with them, which we aren’t with Hollow Bastion. Technically, we’re here on important business, as _privateers_. We’d get pardon.”

Again, Zexion sighed, now pulling a rolled up map from underneath his small table. “Mm, I suppose so. It isn’t a bad decision per say, just a touch iffy.” He didn’t say as much, but despite all the grumbling he tended to do about their destinations, he knew damn well Leon wasn’t the type of person to make overly risky, or at least senselessly risky, decisions. In all the time he’d been navigating for him, Leon had never been truly _careless_ in his decisions. If anything he went entirely the other way. And Zexion perhaps enjoyed being a little cheeky with the captain, as much as he did with anyone.

“It’s the better of our two options if we don’t want to lose time,” and they both knew they didn’t have the leeway to be losing time without a cause.

“Very well then. I’ll route it and have it to our pilot later today,” he let the statement sit for a moment, then turned to his table and started waving his captain away.

“Don’t forget, we can stand to lose time if it means avoiding certain parties on the water.”

Zexion rolled an eye, not bothering to look up from the books he was rifling through and stacking to one side. “Yes, yes, I know that perfectly well.”

Leon turned to leave, but stopped as he went to open the door, and looked back towards the navigator with an almost good-humoured expression. “You know, if Hollow Bastion is the third last place you’d rather be, I’d fear to find out the other two.” Ah, he was giving it as good as Zexion usually gave in terms of cheekiness. Zexion himself had to stop himself from mock gasping and asking if the captain had finally grown a sense of humour.

Without looking up, he lifted two fingers. “The second last right now is back in Midgar. The last is back with that insufferable Ansem.”

At that, Leon almost laughed. Perhaps if he hadn’t been Leon Leonhart, he would have laughed. But, unfortunately for all, he was in fact Squall “Leon” Leonhart, so he didn’t follow through on it.

He walked out and shut the door behind himself without anything more than a vague wave, leaving Zexion to his seemingly endless supply of books. He sighed and let himself lean against the door for a brief moment. Next up was talking to Aqua, once he found her.

He carried on again, now more tired than angry. The day had suddenly started to seem very, very long.

 

* * *

 

While life on the water continued on, a very good deal away a woman sighed and fanned herself with an envelope. She was leafing through several letters that had been laid out on her counter. Not a single one belonged to her.

Technically, she wasn’t supposed to be in charge of opening and reading a certain noble’s mail while he was off galavanting around, yet it still occasionally tended to find its way into her hands. This time, it seemed to be because the house staff had saw fit to bring it her way, she supposed because they figured she might actually be able to get him home to tend to the issues these ones presented.

Unluckily for all of them, nine chances out of ten she wouldn’t be able to. It wasn’t like she carried a copy of the man’s schedule or anything, lord above, how they expected her to know how to get word to him she didn’t know. Probably because her girlfriend had gone off with him this time around, as she often did. Still, she had no clue exactly where he was, and from her general idea she knew that getting any news to him wouldn’t be quick.

Again, she fanned herself with the envelope in her hand. Even inside, in the shade and out of the scorching gaze of the sun, the heat was heavy. The summers on Destiny Island were nothing to be trifled with, that was for sure.

After spending another few minutes staring at the letters, or specifically one letter of great concern, she neatly piled and folded them up, and slipped them back into the envelope. She stashed the thing inside a cupboard, sneakily squeezing it into the back, behind a few books and a few old tin mugs. Out of sight, but retrievable; she would pick it up on her way back to bring back to the house staff. One could never be too careful, unfortunately, and she had had things swiped before.

With a huff that bordered more on another sigh, she laced up her boots and marched out the door into the full midday summer heat. It felt worse under the sun, and it didn’t take long for her to start sweating. She was thankful for the breeze that came off the harbour once she was close enough. There wasn’t much better than that on a hot summer’s day on islands like these.

She trudged off down the shore, hoping to find someone she knew who might’ve been able to help with the issue that wasn’t quite hers, but had instead been pitched into her hands. She passed a few familiar faces; a few local kids fooling around, a few people she couldn’t name but recognized well enough from their regular presences at the pub, and a handful of others she bordered on knowing.

Finally, she settled on a local lady she knew well enough, and she worked with sailors to boot. She strolled up, and the woman turned around, a smile on her face.

“Oh! Miss Lockhart, good afternoon! Do you need something?”

“Good afternoon,” Tifa smiled back, “and yes, actually. I was wondering if you might have any way of getting some news to a certain captain?”

The woman paused and shook her head. “Sorry, but I’ve got no clue where he’s to, let alone how to contact him.”

“...That’s alright, you know how he is,” Tifa shrugged, and after a few more quick words she moved on.

She went through a few more people as she continued on down the shore, including that vaguely familiar blond fellow she couldn’t quite remember the name of and his small friend who must’ve been dreadfully hot under his hat, and then an all-too-familiar redhead rapscallion she would rather not ask for help until it was utterly necessary.

Unfortunately, she didn’t manage to find a single person who could offer any help, and even a few who needed help of their own. The house staff weren’t going to be very happy about this, not that they could do much about it.

As she hiked back up the hill, she thought that _a certain noble_ wasn’t going to be happy about this either. It seemed like he most certainly wasn’t going to be getting off scot free this time either, which might end badly for more than just him.

Tifa frowned and hoped he had enough sense in him to come home on time.

 

* * *

 

By the time Leon had found Aqua, Roxas had already been done with telling Axel he was a nimrod, and whatever else the insult of the week was. Either way, by the time they were done talking it seemed like Axel, Xion, and Demyx were back to chatting while they picked at whatever exactly they were doing; Leon could see them at it.

Next to him Aqua sighed, and it felt like they were back just where they’d been a few hours ago, but this time around they’d been let down on their hopes. “I suppose this is always why they told me never to trust pirates,” she laughed, but it was more hollow than anything. “I never should’ve thought it would be that easy.”

Leon slightly shook his head. “It shouldn’t have been.”

She let her shoulders roll forwards, finally dropping, and Leon was sure this was the only time he’d actually seen her posture drop from her usual ramrod straight confidence. Her elbows were on the railing, hands clasped together over the sea.

“We’ll keep looking.” Aqua’s voice was steady; it was a statement rather than a question. Even if she looked relatively dead on her feet, she retained a certain determination, a steady confidence often reflected in the quiet poise she tended to have.

Leon only nodded. There wasn’t much else to be said between the two of them, it wasn’t like they were really friends. There was a certain unavoidable distance and awkwardness between them, between Aqua being the epitome of straight-backed and respectable nobility, and Leon being a pirate. If anything, there was a wariness between them. Although he felt a little bad for her, it seemed like being on the ship was far more stressful for her than anyone else.

After several moments of silence, Aqua didn’t budge from her spot, and Leon silently started to walk off.  


* * *

 

Cloud felt like he’d been left in the cabin for _hours_. He’d managed to get back on his feet well enough, and although he didn’t consider himself someone overly nosy, he was incredibly, incredibly bored. He’d started wandering around a little bit, and spent a good amount of time looking at the various furnitures and fixtures and knick knacks laying around.

He wasn’t _overly_ nosy, he wasn’t poking around in drawers or anything, heaven forbid. He had found his sword but hadn’t managed to grab it, as it was on a cabinet that was a bit hard to reach, and he didn’t really want to knock over anything.

He was still a little hesitant on his feet anyways, and had to be decently careful not to knock anything over. It wasn’t like the cabin was messy, no, he’d seen far worse, especially being close to Zack (really, his house had been a bit of a nightmare at times), it was more that there were some things left laying around and he didn’t fancy messing the place up. The latest thing he had taken to was poking around at a few maps laying around.

In that brief encounter earlier (which, he honestly still wasn’t entirely sure if that had actually been the captain himself) Cloud had been too stupidly panicked to actually get much of an impression of the man. The cabin painted a bit of an interesting picture; it was neat beneath the small assortment of knick knacks and books and such left around, some of the maps were annotated in an equally neat looping hand (and no, he hadn’t really read them, he wasn’t _that_ nosy and some even looked like they were written too small for him to discern very well either way), and the furniture wasn’t overly gaudy or crowded.

The captain must have been someone sensible, he figured. Because that’s exactly what it was, it was a sensible cabin. Tidy in the right places, cluttered in predictable ones (like the desk he’d nearly fallen over,) and a little more extravagant than some of the more barebones military captain’s cabins he’d seen, but still less extravagant than others. All in all, Cloud didn’t have any wild assumptions to make other than that he hoped the captain was kind enough not to turn him over to the military, if he wasn’t already affiliated with them. But, he would hazard a guess not. Maybe he was just being hopeful.

There was still the question of how and why exactly he’d ended up on the boat, which didn’t have any pleasant answers as far as he could come up with.

He tried to take himself out of those thoughts by squinting at a big and heavily annotated map of the coast from the city of Radiant Garden itself down to Traverse Town that even detailed a few islands in relation to it, with big inked in lines he guessed were routes along it. He sighed after looking at painfully small handwriting for a few moments too long, and flopped back down on the sofa.

The couch may have looked kind of tiny, but Cloud was tinier. He easily fit on it, and had to move down to hang his legs over one of the arms. He threw one arm over his face and restlessly waved his feet back and forth, wishing that this cabin had a damn clock in it at least. If there was one, he hadn’t spotted it.

On the other side of the door there was the vague shuffling of someone walking past, but no knock on the door or turn of the knob, leaving Cloud to his boredom.

 

* * *

 

Outside, one Yuffie Kisaragi had just managed to stop herself from barrelling through the captain’s door when she remembered he wasn’t in fact inside. A foot or two away her current “partner in crime” was trying not to laugh at her over the top gestures as she backpedalled away from the door.

“Geez, you okay over there?” Sora laughed. Behind him, Riku was dryly smiling. “Maybe Leon’s outside?”

“Last I saw him he was up past Axel,” Riku said quietly. Yuffie shrugged and threw her arms in the air.

“I was by there a minute ago! I didn’t see him!” she groaned dramatically.

“Are you sure he’s not in his cabin? Whaddya need him for anyways?”

Yuffie laughed awkwardly, knowing well enough that Sora didn’t have all the details on what had happened in the last twenty-four hours, and that she wasn’t to be giving them. “ _Weeeeeeeell_ , I’ve gotta talk to him about some uh, mapping stuff,” it was true enough, “and I know he isn’t in there, so no use botherin’!” Yuffie flicked a hand, trying to brush it off as best she could. Sora bought it. Riku raised at eyebrow at her with a bit of a smile. _Busted_.

At least she knew him well enough that she could say he wouldn’t say anything, yet.

Sora shrugged good-naturedly as ever, and the three of them started ambling off again, now in the opposite direction. When he started walking a bit ahead, Riku lightly elbowed Yuffie with the smuggest kind of look. “So, what’s the captain hiding?”

Yuffie just grinned, and gave the most nonchalant shrug she could muster. “No clue,” she lowly singsonged.

He didn’t lose his smug smile. “I bet Roxas knows, sometimes he gets told before Sora,”

“Oh yeah, he’s like the tester child,” Yuffie snorted. “Not saying he knows, not saying he don’t.”

“I’ll go ask Kairi,” he nearly singsonged back, and it was far more oddly funny coming out of his mouth than hers.

Yuffie just turned and started walking backwards in front of him. She raised her eyebrows with a wide smile and gave another comically casual shrug before whirling back around and continuing on. The three of them kept going, but to no avail; Leon was still nowhere in sight. They could’ve stopped to ask someone, but didn’t end up bothering.

Soon enough, Sora slowed down a bit, leaned over and back up again and then turned around, now holding a tiny cat in his arms. Riku gave a bit of a giggle at the sight, and Yuffie was already thundering ahead to coo at the cat.

While the three of them were fawning over the cat (it was in fact Sora’s cat, or really Sora-and-Riku’s-and-maybe-also-kinda-Kairi’s cat, and how he’d managed to convince Leon to let him keep her on the ship was beyond most) and kind of giving up on actually finding the captain, Sora started idly chatting.

“Hey guys? Guys? Me and Roxas’ birthday is soon, do you think Leon would let us throw a party?”

“Ooh, a party,” Yuffie looked up from the cat with her own catlike smile.

“Oh! Oh! Maybe he’ll let us go somewhere? I should ask!” Sora started practically bouncing on the balls of his feet, and Riku gently took the cat out of his arms.

“We’re on a job,” Riku chimed in, one hand scritching at the cat’s face. “I don’t know if we’d have the time for it.”

“Well it can’t hurt to ask!”

Yuffie kept up her lazy grin, “The last I saw the captain he seemed in a bit of a bad mood, so y’might wanna wait on that,”

“Oh c’mon, he can’t get too mad. You only turn eighteen once! Right Riku? You should know! You too Yuffie!”

The two of them just laughed, and Sora rolled his eyes.

Between Sora’s continuing rambling and the cat, the three of them didn’t end up getting very far in their little search for Leon together. Really, once the cat jumped out of Riku’s arms and ended up taking off into the ship, it turned into the three of them going about after Sora’s cat with the intention to coddle it, their intended task basically forgotten and thrown to the wayside.  
  


* * *

 

While the kids were running around, Leon had actually been somewhat busy. He’d been back to check on Zexion and how their new course was going, then he’d had to quickly check in with Aerith about a few things, and then when he’d seen Yuffie run by with Sora and Riku and he figured he could talk to her later. It would be a bit of a waste now anyway; he needed to update her on route plans and Zexion wasn’t done yet.

Mostly procrastinating going back to check on the poor soul that had been left in his cabin, and for general peace of mind, Leon found himself back with Zexion. He was doing no small amount of grumbling, and had the captain fetching him things off of shelves. When it came to watching Zexion work, it was best to either stay out of the way or lend him in a hand, he wasn’t often partial to anything else.

Eventually, Zexion organized his stack of papers and held one up. “Here we go. I’ll go talk to our pilot, you’re free to look it over and go.”

Leon nodded and the other finally stood up properly and stretched out, his joints creaking awfully as he did it.

“You probably shouldn’t sit like that for so long, bad for your health,” Leon remarked.

Zexion threw him a look. “And shouldn’t you be checking up on something? I heard you’ve had some poor clueless fellow left in your cabin all day.”

Leon frowned. Obviously Roxas or possibly Axel had been to visit. “Fair enough.”

The two of them headed out the door, and Leon almost dreaded having to deal with the man Axel had brought back. At the very least, it would be the last of his unpleasant tasks for the day, and then he could hopefully relax. If nothing else came up. Hopefully.

He flinched slightly at the sound of a distant yell he knew belonged to Sora, and resolutely headed off in the other direction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i dont know if ive mentioned that theres going to be a plot relevant birthday party but like. here w ego. the start of the plot relevant birthday party. please understand i live for bad drama this whole thing is really just like a bad pirate soap opera that exists in my head and i have a great need to make it real


End file.
